


One happy home

by radioactivesaltghoul



Series: soulmates & coffee shops [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT4, Polyamory, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also a little bit of a coffee shop au if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-08-22 12:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16597673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/pseuds/radioactivesaltghoul
Summary: Most people only have one soulmate. Rarely, people have two. But three soulmates? What are the odds of that?More importantly, what are the odds of actually meeting all three of them?





	1. Poe and Kaydel

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing a reylo soulmates AU and all of the sudden an OT4 with Finn, Rose, Poe, and Kaydel popped out onto the screen. This story doesn't involve Rey or Ben at all; it's just about the OT4 because their story deserved to be told, too.
> 
> Also: come on, aren't you curious as to how polyamory works in a soulmates AU?

It was a shock when Poe Dameron discovered on his sixteenth birthday that he had three sets of soulmarks. 

He had been born at 4:17 in the morning, so he set an alarm for 4:15 and stripped down to stand naked in front of the full-length mirror he’d dragged from the bathroom into his bedroom so that he could watch as the marks appeared on his skin. He’d heard from a classmate that it hurt when they appeared, but as the marks drew themselves on his skin as if they were being written out by some cosmic force, he didn’t feel any pain. Confusion, yes. Pain, no.

How the hell did he have _three_ whole sets of soulmarks? He examined the newly-minted words that had appeared on his left wrist, his left shin, and his right ankle. There had to be some mistake, right? Nobody had three soulmates. _Nobody._ And there was one set in particular that... 

His parents were already awake and waiting for him with a mug of hot coffee as he made his way downstairs a couple of hours later. “So?” his mother said with a smile, handing him the coffee. “What do they say?” When he didn’t answer right away, his mother’s face grew concerned. “What is it, honey?” she asked. “Do you—did no words appear?”

Poe shook his head. How could he possibly tell his parents that he had three sets? It was so weird that it was embarrassing. But that wasn’t the only issue he was having. “No, it’s not that,” he said. He showed his parents his wrist. “These words sound familiar,” he said. Because that was the other concern. He was pretty sure those words had already been spoken to him, and he was pretty sure he knew who the speaker was. And it was not someone he was prepared to talk to about it.

 _Hey, you’re wrecking my sandcastle._ Kaydel Ko Connix and Poe Dameron had never been friends. They’d never even gotten along, not since they’d met when they were six years old and had been dragged to the same beach cookout by both of their parents. Poe remembered what he’d said, too. _I’m not wrecking it. I’m making it better._ Thus began ten years of playground fights, sabotaged art projects, and, later on, academic competition. They were both at the top of their class, and Poe had always felt like he’d be damned if he let Kaydel beat him to valedictorian. He’d always assumed that the memory had stuck out to him because of the way they’d always been at each other’s throats, but...maybe this had been the other reason for it.

Now that he thought about it, the fact that she’d suddenly started avoiding him was starting to make sense. “Her birthday was two months ago,” he said. “Why didn’t she say anything to me?”

“Maybe she didn’t know how,” his mother said softly.

“Wait a minute,” his father said. “You’re not talking about—?” 

“Kaydel,” Poe muttered, feeling his face heat up. “And that’s not all.” Poe had always been close with his parents. Their relationship wasn’t always perfect—what teenager _didn’t_ fight with their parents every once in a while?—but he didn’t want to keep this from them. Besides, the other two sets would be visible as soon as summer hit and the weather warmed up. He couldn’t keep his ankle and his shin hidden forever, unless he wanted to doom himself to a lifetime of jeans and socks, even in the summertime.

He took a deep breath, and rolled up the legs of his sweatpants to expose the other two sets. “It’s not just Kaydel,” he said.

There was silence as his parents looked at the other sets of words on his skin. “What does this mean?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

His parents exchanged glances. “It means you’re fortunate enough to not have one, but _three_ soulmates somewhere in the world.”

That probably should have made Poe feel better, but it just left him more confused. How did this make him fortunate? Did Kaydel also have three sets of soulmarks? What did that mean for them? Hell, how was he supposed to talk to her now, knowing that the universe had deemed them perfect for each other?

This changed _everything_ for him. Within the space of five minutes, Kaydel Ko Connix had gone from ‘annoying academic rival’ to ‘one of three destined life partners.’ And yeah, okay, so he secretly thought she was the most gorgeous person in the whole school, and yeah, he got a weird thrill from the way they were always at each other’s throats, and yeah, he loved the way that she forced him to push himself academically in order to (try to) beat her to the top of the academic charts. But that didn’t mean that they…

Or did it?

“What am I supposed to say to Kaydel at school today?” he groaned.

“Ask her if she wants to build a sandcastle,” his father said with a wink.

 

* * *

 

Kaydel’s perfectly planned-out life had shattered the second her three ( _three!_ ) sets of soulmarks had appeared on her skin, one of which was a set of words that had already been spoken to her.

Luckily, having a January birthday meant that she had a few months before the weather got hot enough that covering up the marks on her right lower arm, right foot, and right bicep would be difficult to manage, unless she started claiming a sun allergy that required her to stay covered head to toe all the time.

But Poe...what was she supposed to do about the fact that Poe fucking Dameron was one of her soulmates? There was no _way_ this wasn’t going to make things weird. And sure, he had gotten, like, _super_ hot in the last couple of years, and sure, they had always been able to keep up with each other in their own weird way. So it made sense, once Kaydel thought about it. But that didn’t make it any easier to acknowledge. 

Prior to her sixteenth birthday, Kaydel had had things all planned out: beat Poe once and for all academically, get a scholarship to a university that was at least a thousand miles away from her hometown, get a job in graphic design or marketing, meet her soulmate somewhere along the way, and die old and happy when she was in her 90s. But if she had this connection to Poe, there was no way that they were going to be able to escape each other. And the scary thing was, Kaydel didn’t even know if she wanted to.

And what if...what if he just had the one set of marks, and they were the ones that matched hers? What did that mean for their (hypothetical, at this point) relationship if she had two other soulmates out there in the world?

 _No, Kaydel, stop,_ she told herself. _If Poe doesn’t bring it up, then ignore it._ It was easy to say it to herself the night she turned sixteen. But once she got to school the next morning and she had to actually face Poe Dameron, she realized quickly that things had completely changed for her overnight. Now, instead of taunting Poe and trying to prove that she was better than him at everything, she found herself avoiding eye contact and eating lunch alone in the back of the library so that she could avoid him. _So much for not making things weird._ But if he noticed the change in her behavior—how could he not, though? They had always been rivals in a small school in a small town—he didn’t say anything. Oh, he kept trying to pick a fight with her. That hadn’t changed. But it wasn’t until a couple of months after her birthday that his behavior changed drastically as well. The day that he came in to school and didn’t immediately try to pick a fight with her, she knew immediately it was his sixteenth birthday and he had also realized their connection. She guessed by the way that he was trying to hide his left wrist that it was the spot that contained the words _Hey! You’re wrecking my sandcastle._

It took three days of trying their hardest to avoid each other—and the questions from their classmates—before she finally caved and hunted him down during lunch. Like her, he had taken to avoiding the cafeteria. Unlike her, he had taken refuge in an unused art classroom. Kaydel hadn’t even realized that Poe knew where the art rooms were, let alone was on good enough terms with an art teacher to hang out in her room during her free period.

He ignored her as she entered the room and sat down across from him. “We should talk,” she said quietly. 

“Why didn’t you say anything to me when the marks appeared on your skin?” he asked harshly, like he was accusing her of wronging him somehow.

“Would you have listened?” she retorted. She took his silence as a _no._ She rolled up the sleeve of her shirt so that his first words to her were exposed. He looked down at the words and pulled the sleeve back on his left wrist.

“So what now?” he asked, finally looking up to meet her eyes.

 _Good question,_ Kaydel thought. What was neutral ground for them? Going on a date—like, dinner and a movie—didn’t feel right. That was something you did when you didn’t know the other person. But Poe and Kaydel already knew each other. She knew that he had earned a spot on the men’s varsity soccer team as a sophomore because he was such a good player (and she knew that because she had done the same thing with the women’s team). She knew that history was his favorite subject (and chemistry the least), that he was an annoyingly good public speaker (but writing wasn’t his strongest suit), and that he was close with his parents (because they were friends with hers).

She also knew that jumping into a relationship—especially one with such weight—was a terrible idea. So…

“Do you have a partner for that American lit project yet?” she asked. “I was planning on reading _The Great Gatsby_.”

He surprised her by laughing. “No way,” he said. “I was going to read _The Great Gatsby,_ too. I’d be happy to be your partner.” 

Within a month, they were dating, earning them a round of “we knew you two were more than just academic rivals” from their classmates and an embarrassing “let us know if you need money to buy condoms” talk from her mother. Kaydel thought her mother was jumping the gun a little bit, but it was reassuring to know that her parents approved of their relationship.

This also meant that she and Poe had to have The Talk. One night when her parents were out, she and Poe quickly went from watching some dumb movie to fooling around. The weather had started warming up, but Kaydel hadn’t completely ditched her long-sleeved shirts yet. But as her hands slid up under Poe’s shirt, she knew she couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“Wait,” she said, pulling away. “There’s something you need to see.” Poe gave her a confused look that quickly gave way to surprise and something that Kaydel took as lust as she pulled her shirt off, leaving her in just her bra, jeans, and socks. “I have more marks,” she said as she showed him her right bicep. 

He said up suddenly and traced his fingers over the words. “No way,” he breathed. He gently nudged her to move and leaned down to remove his right sock, displaying a second set of marks. “Me, too. And that’s not all.” He hiked up the leg of his jeans to show her a third set on his left shin.

Kaydel’s breath hitched, and she removed her right sock without a word. “Three sets,” she said. “On both of us.”

“Do you think these other sets belong to the same two people?” Poe asked. 

She looked down at the marks on her bicep. “Judging from these words, yes,” she said.

“When do you think we’ll meet them?” he asked as he leaned over to kiss her neck. 

“What, I’m not enough for you?” she joked as she wrapped her arms around him.

“I didn’t say that,” he said between kisses. ( _Shit, he’s good at that,_ Kaydel thought. Would her—their—other soulmates be as well?) “Maybe I need help dealing with you.”

She laughed. “You’re just mad because I’m going to beat you to the top of the class ranking.” 

Poe let out a soft laugh, but then he stopped to give her a serious look. “You know I love you, right?”

It was the first time he’d said the words to her. Kaydel felt her breath hitch again, but Poe wasn’t done talking. “I think I loved you even before this—” he waved his wrist at her “—appeared on my skin. I’m excited about the idea that there are two more people out there who I—we—might love someday. But please don’t ever think that means that I’m unhappy with just you.”

It took a moment for her to figure out exactly how to respond to that. “I love you too,” she said. “And I know that you’re not unhappy with just me. And who knows, it’s possible that we may never cross paths with them anyway.” Upon seeing his expression, she added, “Not that I want that to happen! I’m just trying to say that I feel the same way. The fact that there are two—or possibly more—people out there who might fit into this relationship doesn’t change the way I feel about you, nor will it change the way I feel about you if or when we meet those people.”

The answering smile on Poe’s face was the sweetest expression she’d ever seen. “Good,” he whispered. “Me too.”

 


	2. Rose and Poe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe probably should have seen something like this coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't abandoned this, I promise :) I've just had a lot going on lately and basically no time to write.

Rose Tico didn’t think that her sixteenth birthday could be any more surprising than her sister’s, but when three sets of soulmarks showed up on her skin, she realized how wrong she was.

Her family had been waiting after dinner until 10:02 PM rolled around, at which point Rose disappeared to her room to watch her soulmarks appear on her skin. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was going to be anything like Paige’s sixteenth birthday, which came and went without a set of marks showing up on her skin. Paige had been confused about it at first, but then she seemed relieved. She later confessed to Rose that she’d never had any interest in having a soulmate, preferring to maintain a lot of close friendships instead of a serious, deep relationship with just a single person. It was rare for someone to not have any marks, but Rose had definitely noticed a strain in her sister in the months to her sixteenth birthday, and it disappeared as soon as no marks appeared on her skin.

“I have two sets of marks,” she said as she walked back out to the dining room, where her parents and sister were chatting over the remains of Rose’s birthday cake.

“What do the ones on your shoulder blade say?” asked Paige, craning her head to look at Rose’s side.

“What do you mean, the ones on my shoulder blade?” Rose said, trying to bend her head far enough to look.

“You said you have two sets of marks,” Paige said. “The ones on your shoulder blade, and where else?”

Rose felt her face heat up. “You mean, there’s a _third_ set?” she squeaked. She had only noticed the ones on her left hip and her left thigh.

There was silence as her family took in this reaction, and Rose felt her face grow hotter. Then Paige said, “It’s like the universe feels it has to compensate for my lack of soulmarks” and Rose felt some of the tension retreat as her parents cracked smiles at Paige’s joke.

“Aw, these ones are so cute,” Paige said as she read the words on Rose’s shoulder blade.

“How do I have _three_ sets?” Rose asked.

“Do you think that these three people also have three sets connecting them to the same people?” Paige asked.

Their parents had been remarkably quiet as Paige read all of the words written on her sister’s body aloud to them. They had seemed a little uncomfortable with Paige’s lack of marks, believing an old superstition that people without marks were back luck for the people around them. But if anything, they were even _more_ uncomfortable with Rose’s marks. It wasn’t until Rose overheard them talking one night, wondering _What happens if our daughter becomes a widow twice over?_ that she realized that they weren’t ashamed of her, they were worried for her. 

“I think they feel like they’ve failed at raising us,” Paige said when Rose told her about their parents’ conversation. “They want me to get married and have lots of children, and I don’t want that. And then they want you to get married and have lots of children, too, but they only want you to get married once.” She paused, and looked closely at Rose’s face when she asked, “What do you want?”

“Me?”

“They’re _your_ marks. It’s your life. What do you want?”

Rose didn’t want to just throw her parents’ opinions away, but… “I’m excited about the fact that there are three other people out there who I could share this with, whatever ‘this’ is,” she admitted.

“Even if it means that you’ll be a widow twice over?”

“Stars, I hope that’s not what ends up happening.” Rose didn’t think she’d be able to handle losing a partner once, not to mention twice.

Paige gave her a soft smile, then pulled her in for a hug. “You know that no matter what, I’ll always be there for you, right?”

Her parents never brought up their daughters’ soulmark situations, and it failed to be an issue until Rose was already out of college. School had been a welcome distraction for her parents, who had always pushed for Rose to be at the top of her class. They questioned her choice of college majors (“Environmental engineering? What’s wrong with journalism, like your mother?”), but overall, she knew they were proud of her.

Rose had been working at a boring corporate job in the “my job options as a fresh university grad are limited” way that was so common for most of her classmates when Paige passed along a job ad for a small startup called Concrete Resistance. _They’re looking for an analyst,_ Paige’s email had said. _They need someone who can start researching and designing systems for reclaiming green spaces in cities. A friend of a friend told me about the company. Sounds perfect for you!_

And the job _did_ sound perfect to Rose. Her application and interview went off without a hitch, other than her extreme _please, please, please let this work out_ anxiety. And by some miracle, she received a phone call a few days after the interview offering her the job, if she was interested in moving halfway across the country for it.

“Yes,” Rose said, smiling so hard she thought it would break her face in two. “I can start next week.”

She didn’t realize that she hadn’t interviewed with the other owners of the company until her first day of work, when she was greeted by Jessika Pava, who had interviewed her. “It’s so nice to finally meet you in person,” Jessika said with a big smile. “So obviously we spoke a bunch on the phone, but I still have yet to introduce you to the other bosses. They’ve known each other since they were kids, and I met Poe in college. This company is basically our baby. They’re both really excited to meet you; your resume is quite impressive.” She led Rose past a couple of rows of desks to a small office on the other side of the floor from the front desk. “Kaydel’s not in the office today, but Poe wants to meet you before you get started.”

The door to the office was open, and there was a man sitting at a desk, taking note as he read something on the computer screen. When he heard Jessika and Rose approach, he looked up and smiled.

_Whoa._ Rose was blown away by how gorgeous this man was. _Oh, shit._ Developing a crush on her boss was _not_ a good way to start her dream job. Her eyes instantly jumped to the marks she could see on his left wrist, but she couldn’t make out what they said. (And anyway, it wasn’t like it was any of her business.) “Poe, this is Rose Tico,” Jessika said. She turned to Rose and said, “I’m going to go get your desk and employee ID badge set up while you two talk.”

Rose watched her walk away, suddenly anxious as hell about talking to the man sitting at the desk. But the anxiety was immediately replaced by disbelief as he opened his mouth and uttered the words, “Welcome to the CR team, Rose Tico.”

_Oh stars._ She’d known that, in theory, she’d meet someone who would utter the words on her left hip. But she hadn’t expected it to be _him._ “Wait, you’re my new boss?” she said before she could stop herself. 

Judging from the way his eyes widened, he was experiencing the exact same thing she was experiencing. “Wait,” he said. “You mean you—?”

She touched her left hip and said, “There are words right here, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate to take off my pants in the middle of my new boss’s office.” She felt her face heat up. _What are you_ saying _right now?!_ her internal monologue screamed at her.

“My shin,” Poe said, giving her a dumbfounded look that was probably echoed on her face. “Your words are on my shin.”

“Not your wrist?” _Wait. If I have three sets, then maybe he does, too!_

“Ah, that,” he said, turning his arm so that his wrist was hidden. “Those belong to...someone else.” He looked at her like he was trying to gauge her reaction.

“Oh thank the stars,” Rose said, feeling some of the tension drain from her shoulders. She hadn’t realized how worried she was that her soulmates would only have one set. If Poe had more than one set, it meant that she wasn’t going to end up a widow, right? “I have a second set, too. And a third.”

There was a pause. “We should talk,” Poe said, sounding a little flustered.

Rose was, too. “Does this mean—does this mean I can’t work for you anymore?” she asked, the question coming out more quietly than she meant it to.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I’ll have to discuss it with Kaydel. And anyway, I think you’re in Jessika’s department. We haven’t had much need for that kind of set up yet, but we should probably start.”

“Okay,” she said, feeling a little relieved. “Because this is, like, my dream job, and I can’t believe that I’m meeting you.”

“Right,” he said faintly. “Yeah, this is—this is very unexpected.”

_Unexpected,_ Rose thought. _That’s one way of putting it._

 

* * *

 

Meeting Rose Tico was not how Poe had planned his Monday morning.

Well. Technically he _had_ planned to meet Rose, he just hadn’t expected her to be the one to utter the words _Wait, you’re my new boss?_ to him. So instead of giving her the _Welcome to Concrete Resistance_ talk he gave to new employees, they ended up mostly staring at each other in disbelief until his phone chimed, warning him that he had another meeting in five minutes.

“Let me give you my number,” he said, unlocking his phone. “We should go out for a drink after work. Do you want to go out for a drink after work? I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but—”

“We should go out for a drink after work,” Rose said, pulling out her own phone. “Because this is kind of a big deal and I want to know everything about you.” Her eyes widened, and her cheeks turned pink as she quickly added, “But no pressure! No pressure at all! It’s just, you’re, like, really hot, and I’ve never done this before, and _oh my stars I just met my soulmate._ One of them.”

Right. Just one of them. Which meant that if there was a fourth, Rose hadn’t met them yet, either. He and Kaydel had wondered a few times over the past twelve years if they would meet their other soulmates at the same time. “It would be funny if we met another couple in fifty years and they were both our other soulmates,” she’d once said.

(“I hope we don’t have to wait fifty years for that,” he’d replied.)

But speaking of Kaydel...what if she and Rose weren’t meant to be together? Poe needed to figure out a way to introduce them to each other without telling either of them that they were both his soulmate. A no-pressure situation.

And Rose...well, she was beautiful. Kaydel was, too, but in a completely different way. Poe was going to be pretty disappointed if Kaydel and Rose weren’t meant for each other.

“No pressure, but you’re also, like, really gorgeous, and I want to know all about you as well,” he said, entering his number into Rose’s phone. “There’s a bar near here that Kaydel and I sometimes grab a drink at after work. They do really good nachos, if you like nachos as much as I do.” Judging from the grin on her face, she was. “And I want you to meet Kaydel,” he added hesitantly. “You’ve met me, and you’ve met Jessika. You should meet the third owner of this company.”

“Are you going to say anything to them about this?” Rose asked quietly.

Poe couldn’t judge what answer she was hoping for based on her tone. “No,” he said. “At least, not yet. Why,” he added. “Do you want me to?”

“Not yet,” she said. “I honestly have no idea what the etiquette is here.”

He should have been prepared for this, considering the words had implied that he’d be someone’s boss long before he, Kaydel, and Jessika had decided to start their own company. But now that he’d actually met Rose, Poe realized that he had no idea what he was supposed to do, either. “Let’s get that drink, and then figure it out,” he said. “Kaydel’s not in the office today, but she’ll be around after work.” _Of all days for her to take off for a networking event._

On second thought, it was probably better that she wasn’t around. Introducing Rose and Kaydel was something that Poe didn’t want to do in the office.

When Rose didn’t respond, Poe wondered if she thought he was rejecting her. After all, she hadn’t met any of her other soulmates yet. He had. He didn’t know what it was like to meet the first one as an adult, years after the words had appeared on his skin. “I want to be a part of your life, Rose,” he said softly. “And I want you to be a part of mine. I can’t believe I’ve finally met you.” Her expression softened, and he added, “Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly plan for this to happen this morning, and you and I both have a full day ahead of ourselves.”

The corner of Rose’s lips quirked up. Poe caught himself wondering what it would be like to kiss her. It was probably a good thing that he and Kaydel had decided that the office was absolutely off-limits for any form of public displays of affection. Jessika was aware of their connection, but no one else was. He wanted to keep it that way. “I had no idea I was going to be meeting my soulmate today, either,” she said.

“I’m not trying to kick you out,” Poe said as his phone chimed again, reminding him that he had a meeting with Taslin and Emmat, “but—”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Rose said, jumping to her feet. “Right. You’re in charge of this entire company. I’m just the new analyst.”

“Not ‘just’ the new analyst,” he said.

Rose’s face broke out into a goofy grin. “No, I guess not,” she said. “You’ll find me after work?”

“My last meeting ends at five,” Poe said, smiling at her. “First round of drinks and nachos is on me.”

 


	3. Kaydel and Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose’s first day of work is full of surprises.

Poe tried to avoid thinking about it all morning, but judging from the looks Taslin and Emmat were sharing, it was pretty obvious that he was distracted by something. And then he planned on spending the first half of his lunch break trying to figure out what to say to Kaydel, but that got cut short when his phone buzzed and he saw the words _Incoming call from Kaydel_ flash across the screen.

“Real estate conferences are boring as hell,” Kaydel said when Poe picked up the phone.

“So it’s a waste of time?”

“I didn’t say that,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “I just said they’re boring as hell.” Before he could comment on that, however, she asked, “How’d it go with the new analyst this morning?”

_Fuck._ “You mean Rose?” he said, trying to stall.

“No, the other new analyst. Yes, Rose. Did I tell you that I looked her up on LinkedIn? Is she as cute in real life as she is in her profile pic?” Kaydel liked to do light internet stalking before sending a job offer to a potential employee, especially when she wasn’t the one actually doing the interview. Poe didn’t usually bother. Which, given how surprised he’d been to meet Rose Tico (even before she’d said anything), was probably a good thing. If he’d known how gorgeous she was, he might have been nervous about meeting with her.

_What a question,_ Poe thought. “You’ll just have to meet her yourself and find out,” he said. “I’m taking her out to Rico Taco after work. You should meet us.”

He’d been trying to keep a neutral tone of voice, but something must have caught Kaydel’s attention, because she just said, “Uh, yeah. Sure,” like there was a question she wasn’t asking Poe.

Of course, it was probably just that they knew each other so well at this point. Growing up together, finding out you were soulmates, and then starting a business together did that to people.

“The closing remarks are at four,” she said. “I can probably make it to Rico Taco by five, unless they decide to throw some bonus content at us.” The disgust in her voice made it clear how bored she was by the whole event.

“So I guess we’re not going to put tickets to this conference in the budget next year?” he joked.

She groaned. “I’m ordering a massive burrito tonight and you can’t have any of it.”

 

* * *

 

True to her word, the second Kaydel arrived at Rico Taco, she ordered a burrito and waited for Poe and Rose to show up. They arrived not long after, Poe looking oddly nervous. He’d sounded a bit strange on the phone. _There must be something special about her,_ Kaydel realized. Maybe it was because they’d hired Rose without Poe or Kaydel interviewing her? But no, they’d decided along with Jessika that she would take on the majority of interviewing at this point. Kaydel trusted her judgement, and so did Poe.

Maybe he’d just had a long day. She sure as hell had.

“You couldn’t get out of there fast enough, could you?” Poe said by way of greeting.

Kaydel rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“In that case,” he said, gesturing towards the woman standing next to him. “Rose, meet Kaydel. Kaydel, this is Rose.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “So you’re the cute new analyst,” she said, holding out her hand.

Rose’s eyes widened in surprise, which Kaydel found adorable. “Cute? Me? Really?”

Rose must have realized what had happened at the exact second Kaydel did, because her expression shifted from shyness to shock. “Wait a minute,” Rose said. “Did you just say—?”

“I _knew_ it,” Poe interrupted, a huge grin on his face.

Rose and Kaydel both turned to stare at him. “What,” Kaydel said. She didn’t know how to finish the question.

“Your foot,” he said to Kaydel. “And my shin.”

They both had each others’ marks committed to memory as well as their own. _Wait, you’re my new boss?_ “Oh, stars,” she said. “We should have seen something like this coming.”

“We have to tell Jessika,” Poe said. “I didn’t want to say anything before I knew for sure about you and Rose, though.”

Rose was still gaping at the two of them. Kaydel didn’t know if it was because she too shocked about the situation, or because she wasn’t sure how to insert herself into the conversation. That was something that Kaydel had never considered: she and Poe would meet one of their other soulmates, and they’d have to learn how to interact without making the other soulmate feel like a third wheel. She didn’t know how much Poe had told her about his and Kaydel’s history.

Wait. “Do you have three sets as well?” Kaydel asked Rose suddenly.

That seemed to snap Rose out of it. “Yeah,” she said. “I do. I’ve never met my—I’ve never met any of you before today, though.”

Kaydel didn’t know if she was disappointed by that or not. On the one hand, it meant that she and Poe got Rose all to themselves for the time being. On the other hand…

It had taken them twelve years to find Rose. How long would it take them to find their last soulmate? Assuming that they all shared the fourth? But...no, the marks on Kaydel’s right bicep suggested that they shared the fourth.

“Holy shit,” Kaydel murmured, her eyes scanning Rose’s face. How did someone manage to be so cute and so hot at the same time? Was this instant attraction something that people normally felt when meeting their soulmates for the first time? She hadn’t realized until that moment how unprepared she was to meet one of her other soulmates. There was a huge difference between finding out that the classmate she’d always acted like she hated (but secretly liked) was her soulmate and finding out that her random new employee was her soulmate.

“Yeah,” Rose said faintly, taking Kaydel in as well.

When neither of them said anything else, Poe said, “I’ll get us all a round of drinks” before walking off in the direction of the bar.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said a moment later.

Kaydel frowned. “Sorry?”

“This is just a lot to take in,” Rose said. “I mean, I literally _just_ moved to this city, and I’ve read, like, a million romance novels, but this is not at all what I expected.”

Kaydel grinned. “You like romance novels? You and Poe should talk. He’ll deny it, but he secretly _loves_ romance novels. That’s the entire reason he got an e-reader in the first place, so that we didn’t have to have piles of them stacked around the apartment.” She actually didn’t mind having them around, but she could never get into them quite like Poe could.

Rose’s eyes flicked over to where Poe was waiting at the bar. “I never would have guessed,” she murmured. She looked back at Kaydel and said hesitantly, “So you guys live together?”

_Oh. This is awkward._ She and Poe didn’t have the most... _traditional_ living style. “We’ve been living together since we graduated from college,” Kaydel said. “But we both keep our own space. We found out pretty early on that we don’t like sharing a room.” Kaydel tended to let clutter accumulate. Poe didn’t. “We end up sleeping in the same bed half the time, though.” _What’s Rose’s living style like?_ Kaydel found herself wondering. _No, wait. It’s way too early for that. Right?_ Poe was the romance expert. Not her.

“You guys met in college?” Rose asked.

“We grew up together,” Poe said, sitting back down at the table with a bowl of chips. “Our parents are old friends. We met long before the marks appeared on our skin.” He rolled up his left sleeve a little bit to show Rose his wrist. “See?”

“ _Hey, you’re wrecking my sandcastle,_ ” she read. “Cute.” She smiled, then looked up at Kaydel. “What do yours say?”

Kaydel was already rolling up her right sleeve to show Rose the words etched there. “ _I’m not wrecking it. I’m making it better._ We were six years old the first time we spoke to each other,” she explained. “And then we spent the next ten years hating each other—”

“—But secretly not hating each other at all,” Poe said. “There was an awkward period between our sixteenth birthdays, but we figured it out after that.”

“Wow,” Rose said. “So your parents—they know? And they’re okay with this?”  _How did her parents react on her sixteenth birthday?_

“Are you kidding?” Poe said, either oblivious to Rose’s tone of voice or trying to cheer her up. “My parents were happier than I was at first.”

“You know that scene in _Mean Girls_ when Amy Pohler says ‘Can I get you guys anything? Some snacks? A condom?’ My mom basically did that the first time she saw us kiss.” That was not a conversation Kaydel enjoyed reliving.

“And at work,” Rose said. “No one knows?”

“Just Jessika,” Poe said. “We don’t want to make a big deal out of it. Plus, we like having boundaries.”

Which they’d need to discuss—the _three_ of them—at some point sooner rather than later. But first… “What about you?” Kaydel asked Rose. “What’s your story?”

 

* * *

 

Rose was amazed at how seamlessly she fell into Kaydel’s and Poe’s lives. That first night, they stayed at Rico Taco until closing, just talking and getting to know each other. And then Poe and Kaydel walked her back to the AirBnB she was staying in until she found a more permanent living situation, and they shared some goofy, sweet, excited first kisses. Rose had only kissed one other person in her life, and she wasn’t ready for the difference between kissing her soulmates and kissing a random classmate at a party in college. 

It was unexpected. It was magical. It was everything she’d ever wanted in a relationship. And then it just felt so natural a month later when Kaydel and Poe’s lease was up and Rose still hadn’t found a good apartment and the three of them ended up moving into a nice three bedroom apartment together. Rose was already spending most of her nights with them at that point, so it wasn’t a huge jump. All that it meant was that she had her own space, and even when she was sleeping alone in her own bed, she knew that her soulmates weren’t far away.

They set boundaries, of course. Living, working, and sleeping together meant that things had the potential to get a bit messy, even though they were all soulmates. There was tension at work sometimes—there was no easy way to respond to a surprise message that said _You’re killing me in that dress today_ or _I want you so badly that I am three seconds away from locking us in a supply closet right now_ and still seem professional—but ultimately they were happy, so happy, happier than Rose had ever thought she could be.

There was just one more thing, however. Where was their fourth soulmate?

“It’s gotta be the same person,” Kaydel said one night as the three of them lay naked and curled up together in Poe’s bed. “What else could my last set of marks refer to?”

“I hope it is,” said Poe, running his fingers along Kaydel’s bicep. “It’s going to be really difficult for me to know otherwise.” His last set was unfortunately ambiguous.

Rose’s, on the other hand… “This is why I should be in charge of all team coffee runs,” she said, pointing at her shoulder. “You’d think the instant attraction would give you some indication, though,” she said to Poe.

Kaydel snorted. “That doesn’t mean much to him. He can find something attractive in pretty much everyone he meets.”

“Hey, just because we live in a city with a lot of beautiful people doesn’t mean that I don’t have standards,” Poe said.

“I hope we don’t have to wait too much longer to meet them,” Rose murmured. “I don’t want them to be lonely without us.”

“Who do you think will meet them first?” Kaydel asked.

“What is this, a race?” Poe said, pressing a kiss into her shoulder.

“You know what? I don’t care who meets them first,” Rose said, smiling. “We’ll all get a chance in the end, I hope.”

 


	4. Finn and Poe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is it with coffee shops and soulmate meetcutes in this AU, anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously. I have no idea why this ended up being a semi-coffee shop AU as well.
> 
> I love reading your comments and reactions featuring questions like "What if your soulmarks were vague? Or rude? Or confusing?" when I've forgotten that I haven't revealed all of the soulmarks for this group yet. Finn and Poe's meeting was a lot of fun to write. I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I did.

Finn Johnson considered himself lucky that his soulmarks were in easy-to-conceal places, because he sure as hell wasn’t ready to see three sets of them show up on his sixteenth birthday.

In one of his earlier foster homes, one of the other kids staying there had two sets of soulmarks show up on her sixteenth birthday. Finn had been eight years old at the time, but he was never going to forget the way the foster mother had laughed and teased her for her future as a widow. Nor was he going to forget the way that another foster kid in another foster home had been teased mercilessly at having soulmarks that said _Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?_

He saw some relationships where everything seemed to work out okay. He stayed in one foster home where the parents had turned their entire house into a reference to their first words, which had something to do with stars, horses, and mittens. And not that he stayed long in any truly awful foster homes, but getting bounced around from home to home wasn’t the best way to grow up. So by the time he turned sixteen, he was fully prepared to brace himself for the possibility of never seeing any marks appear on his skin.

What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was to see three sets.

He didn’t know what it meant. Nor did he have anyone he was comfortable asking. He was reduced to trying to stealthily research on the old computers in his high school’s library, but even then, he couldn’t find much. Sometimes, having multiple sets of soulmarks meant that one of your soulmates was going to die young, and you’d meet the other after that. Sometimes, it meant that you’d form a lasting relationship with both soulmates. But in all of those stories, the people involved only ever had two sets. No one else had three.

Not that it mattered right now, anyway. Finn had bigger things to worry about. Like figuring out what the hell he was going to do when he aged out of the system halfway through his senior year of high school.

He got lucky with his final foster home, however. The woman in charge—a tiny, old woman named Maz who had a sixth sense for trouble—let him stay until he finished high school, and then she helped him figure out how to pay his way through college. A degree in communications maybe wasn’t the most “useful” degree, but Finn managed to land a well-paying job at some big company called First Order Properties not long after graduating, so he figured it wasn’t really a problem. 

Well. Working at First Order Properties sucked. There were so many stupid rules and policies, and Finn never ended up on the projects he wanted to get put on, and everyone was always in a bad mood. It was rumored that the people at the top of the company collected the ashes of their enemies. Finn had never met anyone that high up personally, and he was happy to keep it that way. Dealing with his boss, Phasma, was more than enough.

At some point, he’d just tuned his soulmarks out completely. He barely even noticed them anymore when he looked in the mirror. What was the point? He had his hands full with his job these days. He’d actually started enjoying being the one to go pick up his boss’s coffee in the morning. At least then he had an excuse to get out of the office for a little bit. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to meet his soulmates, it was just...well, he was busy and they were probably busy and if it was going to happen, then it would happen whether he tried to find them or not.

But Finn couldn’t help hoping to feel that spark every time he bumped into someone or every time he spoke to a stranger. This was the problem with one set of marks being a common phrase. There was no good way to know if, say, the handsome Latino man who he just bumped into while on a coffee run for the other research techs in his department was one of his matches or not.

“Aw, shit,” Finn said as coffee splattered all over the floor.

“Oh my stars, I am so sorry!” the man said, his face turning red.

“It’s fine,” Finn mumbled as he put the tray of remaining coffee on a counter and grabbed some napkins.

“This is my fault,” the man said, grabbing a handful of napkins to help Finn clean up the mess. “I was paying attention to my phone. Please, let me buy you a new coffee.”

“It’s fine,” Finn repeated. “Honestly? I’m not in a big rush to get back to the office.” He probably should have been. Phasma wasn’t the most forgiving boss, nor were the other research techs the most forgiving coworkers. But he couldn’t help but hold out a stupid hope that _maybe this is it_ anytime he heard the phrase _Oh my stars, I am so sorry_ from a stranger.

The other man grinned. “Let me guess. Someone in your office microwaved tuna? You sit next to someone who makes loud phone calls all the time? The coffee in your breakroom is terrible?”

Finn couldn’t keep from smiling back. “All of the above, plus a shitty boss.” He was about to shake Poe's hand when the barista interrupted to ask what his order was. 

“It’s on me,” the man said to the barista. “I owe him the coffee I knocked over.”

“Making trouble in my coffee shop again, Poe?” she said, ringing up the order.

“Always,” the man—Poe—said with a wink.

Finn suddenly felt...what, shy? Awkward? Here was this super hot guy who just happened to say words that Finn had been waiting to hear for the past ten years, buying him coffee, flirting with the barista as if the two of them knew each other. He wanted to keep talking to Poe, but he had no idea what to say. (Finn had never quite mastered the art of small talk.) 

“So,” Poe said while they waited for the coffee. “Where do you work that’s so terrible?”

“First Order Properties.”

Poe grimaced. “They have that big ugly office on 6th Street, right? Why do you come all the way down here for coffee?”

“It gives me an excuse to get out of the office for just a little longer,” Finn admitted. 

“Fair point.” Poe opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but he was interrupted again by the barista. “I’d love to stay and chat to give you an excuse to stay out just a little longer,” he said, handing Finn his coffee, “but I have to get to a meeting in a few minutes.”

Finn felt his heart fall slightly. “That’s fine,” he said, trying to brush off the sting of rejection. It wasn’t like this stranger owed him anything. Just because Finn was dying to figure out if this man was one of his soulmates or not didn’t mean that Poe felt the same way.

“This is my favorite coffee shop,” Poe said suddenly. “Maybe I’ll see you again.”

_Does that mean he—?_ “Maybe, yeah,” Finn said, trying to keep from sounding too hopeful. “I like the coffee here, too.” Well okay, so he’d actually never been to Takodana Cafe before, but he was about to become a regular. _I have_ no _chill._

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know,” Poe said, staring at the computer screen. “This scene doesn’t feel right.”

Rose frowned. Poe was normally so decisive during their “Wednesday night writing” sessions. Kaydel went to yoga with Jessika, and Rose and Poe wrote MCU fanfiction together. (Rose was never, ever going to get sick of her favorite romance tropes.) “Okay, spit it out,” she said, turning in her chair to give him a _look_. “What’s really bothering you?” 

Poe blinked. “What? Nothing’s bothering me.”

“Poe. Sweetheart. We’ve been planning this chapter all week. And now you’re not sure about it?”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I walked into someone at Takodana Cafe earlier and spilled his coffee. I bought him a new one; I’m just still embarrassed about it." 

“Was he mad?” It wasn’t like Poe to act so embarrassed about something like this. He wasn’t a graceful person, but he was usually good at letting things slide.

“No, not at all,” Poe said. “If anything, he seemed grateful for the excuse to take a slightly longer coffee run.” 

_Huh._ What could possibly be bothering Poe so much about this? Before Rose could ask him more about it, he turned back to the computer screen. “Actually, I have an idea for this scene…”

It wasn’t until hours later, when Kaydel was home and the three of them were milling around, getting ready for bed, that Poe spit it out. “His first words to me were ‘oh shit,’” he said to Rose while she was brushing her teeth. 

“Whose words?” Kaydel asked, poking her head into the bathroom.

“A guy I met earlier at Takodana Cafe,” Poe said. “I spilled his coffee, and he said ‘oh shit.’”

“What did you say?” Kaydel asked.

“I apologized, and then I bought him a new coffee.” 

“Did he say anything after you apologized?” They all knew what Kaydel meant: Did he _say_ anything? It wasn’t just about the actual words sometimes. Rose swore that the way it felt when she touched Kaydel or Poe was different from everyone else, even with little gestures like handshakes and one-armed hugs. It made her wonder if she’d have been able to recognize them as her soulmates even without the help of the words marked on their skin.

“Nothing like that, no,” he said. “But to be fair, it wouldn’t be strange if the words he’s expecting from me are as vague as the ones I’m expecting from him.”

Rose spat out her mouthful of toothpaste and asked the question that she hoped would push her soulmate in the right direction. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Think he’s going to go back to Takodana?” Kaydel asked.

“I hope so,” Rose said, smiling. “What does he—no, wait.” Something had occurred to her. “Don’t tell us what he looks like. Otherwise Kaydel and I will start looking for him everywhere.” Kaydel snorted, but she didn’t argue. “If he truly is meant to be with us, the universe will cause us to cross paths again.”

“If it were anyone else, I would make a snappy comment about that statement, but I love you both for being such romantics,” Kaydel said, giving them both a fond smile.

“You don’t think Poe’s mystery man is our other soulmate?” Rose asked.

Kaydel shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Rose grinned. “I call first dibs on tomorrow’s coffee run.”

Poe let out a soft laugh, then kissed each of them on the cheek. “I should’ve known that you would find a way to make an embarrassing moment romantic,” he said to Rose.

“I meant what I said, Dameron.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re wondering what Rose and Poe’s favorite MCU ships are, the answer is: Peter Quill/Gamora, Valkyrie/Natasha Romanoff, and Steve Rogers/Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes/Steven Strange. (Disclaimer: I love the MCU, but I do not read or write MCU fic. I have no idea how popular these ships actually are. But now that I think about it, I'd pay good money to see a Valkyrie/Black Widow team up...)


	5. Rose and Finn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three guesses as to where these first words are exchanged?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would make a moodboard for this fic but lbr it would just be a bunch of pictures of coffee shops.

Rose didn’t meet her third soulmate the next day. Or the day after that.

A week went by, and then two. She, Kaydel, and Poe hadn’t _officially_ settled on a coffee run rotation, but they’d all started making a lot more trips to Takodana Cafe. Rose overheard Jessika saying something about it to Poe a couple of weeks after the day that he’d maybe-met their last soulmate. She wasn’t as close to Poe as Rose and Kaydel were, but she knew him well enough that she’d figured out that something had happened. “We just really like the coffee there, that’s all,” he’d said.

“Sure you do,” Jessika had replied, laughing. “Whatever, as long as you’re not spending company money on your coffee runs, I don’t care.” 

Two weeks after that, they’d all started to lose hope. Poe hadn’t run into him again, and neither Rose nor Kaydel had heard the magical words they were expecting to hear. “I guess it was just a fluke,” Poe said as they were waiting for the burritos they’d ordered at Rico Taco. “Not hard when your marks say ‘oh, shit.’”

“They’ve gotta be out there somewhere, though,” Rose said, thinking of the words etched on her shoulder blade.

“I know,” Poe said, giving her a small smile. “In the meantime, though, we’ve got plenty to keep us busy.” They’d received word that a couple of investors were interested in Concrete Resistance, which meant that the whole company was about to be up to their ears in new tasks and projects. Jessika and Kaydel were starting to interview programmers, since it was becoming clear that they needed more help than someone with a basic knowledge of Squarespace could give.

“Which means we have to relax when we can,” said Kaydel. “And I vote we relax by demolishing these burritos, then going home and watching more _Queer Eye_.”

Rose had thought she was ready for the influx of work—living with two of the bosses had that benefit—but nothing prepared her for what it was actually like. On top of her job workload, she’d also picked up more of the cooking and cleaning around the house while Poe and Kaydel were trying to get things ready to show off to the potential investors. (Not that she minded that; she liked having people to take care of, and she knew that they’d do the same for her.) She was barely even thinking about the possibility of crossing paths with their fourth soulmate one day when she made a run to Takodana Cafe for some much-needed caffeine. 

“ _Một ly trà xanh đa và ba ly cà phê nóng_ ,” she said, rifling through her wallet for her frequent purchaser card. It wasn’t until she caught the barista’s confused expression that she realized she hadn’t spoken English. “A cup of iced green tea and three cups of hot coffee,” she said. _This is what I get for trying to order coffee immediately after getting off the phone with my parents,_ she thought, embarrassed about the slip-up. 

The barista flashed her a smile as if to say _One of those days, huh?_ as she rang up Rose’s order. “Wow,” Rose said to the man standing next to her as she waited for her order. “I am _not_ good at doing talking today.” _Doing talking. Wow. You’ve outdone yourself, Rose._

That combination of words meant something to him, though, because his whole expression lit up. “I’m in no rush to get back to work and I would love to help you carry that tray of coffees to wherever you’re going with it,” he said as if he couldn’t get the words out quickly enough.

Suddenly, Rose understood why he was wearing that expression. “You,” she breathed. And then, because names were important, she added, "I'm Rose. Rose Tico."

"Finn Johnson," the man said, holding out a hand for her to shake. She put her hand in his, feeling like her face was going to split in half because she was smiling so hard. "I meant what I said. I would love to help you carry those coffees anywhere. Obviously I want to get to know you, of course! But selfishly, I'd also love the excuse to not go back to the office just yet."

She laughed. "I could use the help, sure," she said. "And I would love to get to know you as well."

 

* * *

 

Finn couldn't believe how lucky he was that this gorgeous woman he'd seen in Takodana Cafe was his soulmate. One of them, anyway.

He'd gone back to Takodana Cafe more often than was probably necessary, considering how out-of-the-way it was from the office. He kept hoping he'd run into Poe again, but nothing. No sign of the man anywhere. Sure, it was possible that they just happened to keep missing each other, but Finn's experience with interpersonal relationships had never been particularly great, so he shouldn't have been surprised that he hadn't run into his maybe-soulmate again.

Still. Meeting Rose Tico was enough to make all of the extra trips and agonizing about how desperate he was worth it. She chatted excitedly to him as he followed her back to her office, helping her balance the drinks she'd ordered. "I work at a startup, and we're swamped right now. I volunteered to make a coffee run, since I'm not in charge of running meetings with potential investors." 

"What kind of startup?"

"Environmental conservation and community outreach. We want to focus on helping people connect with others in their community to cultivate urban gardens and other green spaces. It's something I feel super passionately about it, as do my—" She stopped suddenly, giving him a look that he could only describe as apprehensive. _Oh no._ "How many sets of soulmarks do you have?" she asked.

Finn was momentarily taken aback by how rude the question was. It wasn't polite to comment on someone else's marks, and it definitely wasn't polite to comment on the number of sets that someone had. But if the question was coming from one of his soulmates…

_My soulmate._ After spending his entire life alone, it was a strange phrase to use.

When he didn't respond, Rose added, "Sorry! I know it's a rude question but I have to know. Do you have more than one set? Because I do."

This was even better than he'd thought it would be. "Three," he blurted out. "I have three sets." 

She bit her lip and smiled. It was quite possibly the cutest thing Finn had ever seen. "Me too," she said. "I've met my other soulmates. Would you like to meet them sometime?"

"Oh, I don't want to intrude," Finn said, panicking a little bit. Did she think that her other soulmates were his as well? Did her other soulmates have multiple sets of marks as well? 

Rose's expression fell slightly. "Oh, sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to assume..." She paused. "I'm just so happy that I've finally met you," she added quietly.

"I'm just not used to this sort of thing," he said, scrambling to figure out how to fix this conversation. "I do want to meet them, I think."

"Have you met any of your other soulmates?" she asked. 

_This is my favorite coffee shop. Maybe I’ll see you again._ "No," he said. "I'm an accidental workaholic. I don't get out much." That was probably an embarrassing thing to admit. He was in his 20s and his social life consisted of...well, nothing. Netflix and books. He didn't even have a lot of internet friends.

There was a flash of disappointment that crossed her face, but then her expression shifted back into the happy smile she'd been wearing since they'd met. "We're all pretty busy with work ourselves these days," she said, "but we still try to make time to go out."

"Do you—are you all together?" he asked. "Sorry, you don't have to answer that if it's too personal, I—" He what? He wanted to be involved? 

"We live together, yes," she said. "And we work together. That's actually how I met them. I showed up for my first day of work at Concrete Resistance and bam, there it was. My new employee orientation meeting turned into an hour of us staring at each other in disbelief." 

Despite himself, Finn laughed. “I can't even imagine that," he said, thinking of the stern, uptight, and downright scary people who he worked for. "Do your coworkers know?"

"One of them does," Rose said. "But we try to keep it pretty quiet. It would be too distracting for everyone if we were open about the true nature of our relationship, although I think that some of them suspect."

"Wow," he breathed. It sounded like Rose already had a full life going for her with her other soulmates. Finn had no idea how he'd be able to fit into something like that. He didn't do anything these days. No hobbies. And Rose was so bright and cute and excited and what was Finn going to do?

As if sensing where his thoughts were going, she stopped and turned to look at him. "Hey," she said, stepping closer to him. "I want you to be a part of that, too. We all do. No matter if you're their other soulmate or not." 

Finn took a deep breath. "Can we take it slowly?" he asked, hating how meek the words sounded.

"Of course. Do you want to have dinner tonight? Just the two of us, if you're not ready to meet the others yet."

He felt his face break out into the biggest smile he'd worn in years. "I'd love that," he said. "I want to meet them. But I'd love to get to know you a little better first."

"I'd love that, too," she said, flushing slightly. "So it's a date?"

Those were words that no one had ever spoken to Finn. He'd never _wanted_ them before. But he loved hearing them come from Rose. "It's a date."

 

* * *

 

Something had happened at Takodana Cafe, because Rose came back with the kind of dreamy expression that Kaydel only saw her wear when she was deep in the midst of reading her favorite books. "We need to talk," she whispered to Kaydel as she handed her a large cup of coffee.

_No way._ The flushed, excited expression, combined with a trip to Takodana Cafe had to mean… Kaydel dragged Rose into an empty conference room before whispering "You met—?" She couldn't even bring herself to say it. 

"I did," Rose whispered, seeming barely able to contain herself. "Kaydel, he's so shy and so sweet and we're getting dinner tonight and I can't believe I finally met him." 

"Tonight?" Well, it was going to require Kaydel and Poe to shuffle their schedules around (they both liked to plan things in advance; they were too busy to operate without schedules), but meeting their soulmate's other soulmate constituted an emergency.

Rose faltered. "Well, the thing is..."

_Oh no._ Kaydel's heart started pounding. He only had one set, didn't he? He wasn't her and Poe's other soulmate. For all that they'd discussed that possibility, she wasn't prepared for the way she felt so crushed, knowing that she wouldn't share that with Rose. They could probably still be friends, but wouldn't it feel uneven if one of their soulmates had a soulmate separate from their little family?

"...he wants to meet you guys, too, but—"

"He's only got one set," Kaydel mumbled.

Rose's eyes widened. "Oh, no, not at all! He has three. He told me."

Kaydel was split into equal parts relieved that Rose's soulmate might still be hers and Poe's other soulmate and confused at Rose's hesitancy to explain their dinner plans.

"He wants to meet you two," Rose continued, "but not yet. He said he hasn't met any of his other soulmates yet. He just wanted to get dinner tonight with us." She looked away, like she was afraid to make eye contact with Kaydel. "I hope that's okay? I didn't want to exclude you, it just all happened so fast and then he had to get back to work and I was nearly floating on my way up to the office." 

Was she jealous? She'd never felt any jealousy over the fact that Poe had met Rose first. But then again, he'd introduced her to Kaydel almost immediately, so there was never much of a gap there. And anyway, she didn't want to do anything to give her soulmate a reason to wipe the excited, lovestruck expression from Rose’s lovely face. 

"I think he's shy," Rose added when Kaydel didn't respond. "But he does want to meet you guys."

_No,_ Kaydel decided. _Not jealous._ "I can't wait to meet him," she said, meeting Rose's smile with one of her own. "What do you think Poe's gonna say when you tell him?"

"He's going to lose his shit."

"I can't _wait_ to see that happen."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only speak a little bit of Vietnamese, so please let me know if that translation is wrong.
> 
> Rose is [code-switching](https://www.thoughtco.com/code-switching-language-1689858) when she flips between English and Vietnamese. [Here are some reasons why people do it](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/13/177126294/five-reasons-why-people-code-switch). My headcanon here is that her family are all fluent in Vietnamese and English, but (a) her parents find it easier to speak Vietnamese and (b) it makes it difficult for the people around her to listen in on her phone conversation.


	6. Kaydel and Finn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Finn start dating, and Poe and Kaydel speculate as to what Rose’s mysterious third soulmate is like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you hadn't already noticed, the chapter count went up. I'm not ready to let this AU go yet; I have more headcanons for this relationship, and aren't you curious as to what happened when they met each others' families?

"Is Rose out with her other soulmate again?" Kaydel asked as she walked into the living room and spotted Poe sprawled on the couch all alone. 

"Yeah."

"Did she tell you anything else about him?"

"No."

Poe heard Kaydel sigh. He knew the feeling. Rose had been so tight-lipped about her other soulmate, claiming that she didn't want to say too much about him to Poe and Kaydel, just in case that would impact their reactions when they met him for the first time. "Spoilers," she'd said with a wink.

"That's not how that _Doctor Who_ reference works," Poe had grumbled after she'd gone out of earshot.

That had been earlier this evening. Rose had met her third soulmate three weeks ago, and she had yet to introduce him to her other two soulmates. Poe knew it was unfair of him, but it wasn't Rose's fault that he was jealous.

"Hey," Kaydel said softly, letting her bag and jacket slide to the floor before curling up on the couch with Poe. "We're going to meet him. She's not going to be able to hide him from us forever."

"I know," Poe said, burying his face in her neck. "But I still want to meet him now. I have to know, Kaydel."

"She said he's really shy."

"I know."

"She also said that she might be bringing him back here later."

Poe froze. "She what?"

"She didn't say anything to you?"

His heart started pounding. "No," he said, pushing himself up. "She didn't say anything about it."

"Oh." Kaydel's eyes were wide as she met Poe's. "It was just something she mentioned in passing earlier. I assumed she'd told you."

Poe was struck with an irrational thought of _We need to clean our entire apartment right now_. As if she were reading his mind—which, let's be real, after knowing your soulmate for nearly your entire life, wasn't completely inaccurate—she said, "Relax, sweetheart. The apartment is fine. You look great. If— _if_ she brings him back later on, she'll send us a warning text. You're going to make a good first impression."

_Or possibly a second impression,_ Poe thought. He'd spent the last three weeks constantly torn between wanting to beg Rose for more details about the mysterious third soulmate and wanting to pretend that he wasn't anxious about the situation at all. It had made things a bit strained between them. Kaydel was holding it together better than he was, but the strain was making it a little awkward for her as well. 

"Relax," Kaydel said, rubbing his back. "No matter what happens, we're a family. Things will work out. I don't think Rose likes having this split, either." When he didn't respond, she picked up the remote and put on some dumb tv show that they always found relaxing.

A couple of episodes later, Poe had almost relaxed enough that the thought of Rose bringing her third soulmate home to meet them barely bothered him anymore. The fact that they were making out was probably the true reason for the distraction, but they were both jolted out of the moment when both of their phones chimed with a message from Rose.

**_He wants to meet you guys. We'll be there in ten minutes._ **

_This is it, this is it, this is it_ Poe's brain screamed at him as he and Kaydel sprung apart. She wasn't as outwardly nervous as he was, but he knew her well enough to tell that she was just as anxious as he was. "It's going to be okay, Poe," she murmured to him, wrapping her arms around him. "At least we'll know after this."

"I don't know which is more stressful, the idea that her soulmate is the guy I met, or the idea that he isn't," Poe confessed.

He was absolutely _not_ obsessively checking his phone every ten seconds when he and Kaydel heard the sound of two voices right outside of the door to their apartment. "This is it," he whispered to Kaydel as the lock clicked open and Rose opened the door.

"Hey guys," she said, smiling at Poe and Kaydel. "This is—"

Poe was barely cognizant of the fact that he was all but flying across the room to wrap his arms around Finn in a big bear hug, despite being slightly shorter. "I was hoping it was you," he whispered into Finn's ear.

Finn seemed frozen for a moment as he tried to process what was happening before he melted into Poe's embraced, wrapping his arms around him. "I was, too," he whispered.

"Rose wouldn't tell us anything," Poe murmured. "She said she wanted it to be a surprise. She didn't want to change our expectations."

Finn laughed. "She said that to me, too. I kept going back to Takodana Cafe, hoping to see you again. Instead, I met Rose."

"We were taking turns," Poe said. "I told them I thought I'd met my third soulmate, but I wasn't sure because the words were so—"

"Ambiguous?"

Poe laughed. "Exactly," he said. He slowly loosened his grip around Finn's neck and pulled back. "In that case..." He turned to look at Kaydel, who was doing a very poor job of hiding her happy, hopeful grin. "Finn, meet Kaydel. Mine and Rose's other soulmate."

Kaydel stepped forwards, looking like she was unsure of whether or not she should hug Finn. Rose had said he was shy, Poe remembered. That had been Poe's impression of him, too. "I can't believe I'm finally meeting you," she said breathlessly.

Poe had thought that Finn's smile couldn't get any bigger, but it did. "I can't believe there are four of us."

 

* * *

 

None of them were able to contain their excitement at finally all being together. Finn still felt a little shy and slightly awkward about all of the attention on him, but with Rose sitting on one side of him, holding his hand, and Poe's arm wrapped around his other shoulder, he'd never felt like he belonged somewhere so much. "This is so surreal," he said. "The four of us. All my life, I was alone."

"Not anymore, you're not," Kaydel said, smiling at him. It was a bit awkward, the way they were sitting—the couch wasn't big enough for four people, so Kaydel was sitting on the floor, her head resting on Rose's knee—but Finn didn't think that any of them wanted to let the others go anytime soon. He hadn't realized how worried he'd been that he wasn't going to fit in with Rose's other soulmates until tonight, and he wished he'd asked her if he could meet them sooner.

Poe seemed as relieved that they were soulmates as Finn was, and he'd laughed when Kaydel told him that she, Poe, and Rose had always assumed that Poe would be the last one to meet their other soulmate because of the words marked on his skin. "I always knew we'd find you, though," she said, indicating the words on her bicep. "I was just afraid that it was going to take a lot longer. Poe and I met long before our marks appeared, but it took us twelve years to meet Rose. We were worried that you'd be alone without us."

"I was," Finn admitted. "But..." He took a deep breath. "I know that things moved quickly with you guys and Rose, but I'm not sure I'm ready to drop everything and move in with you right this second." In the half second of silence, he panicked and added, "Not that I don't want to spend time with you or ever live with you! This is just all so new to me, and you three have your established routine, and I'm not sure where I fit into it." He was babbling now, all but word vomiting all of his stupid insecurities. Even having the proof that they all fit together, it was still all so new to him, and he needed the space to figure out how he fit in before he tried to cram himself into their live.

"That's..." Rose said. She, Poe, and Kaydel all exchanged looks. Finn wondered if the urban legend that soulmate could learn to read each others' minds was actually true. Or maybe he was just overthinking things. "We can move at whatever pace feels right," she finally said, giving Finn a soft kiss on the cheek.

That was another thing. The... _physical_ aspect of this. He and Rose had kissed, but they hadn't done anything more than that. And he'd never kissed anyone else, period. Even this, sitting on the couch together, was more physical contact than he'd ever experienced. It was nice, even though it made him a little tense.

"Agreed," Poe said, kissing Finn's other cheek.

"Hey," said Kaydel, pushing herself up to sit in Rose's lap. "I want a turn to kiss Finn, too."

 

* * *

 

Kaydel never would have said that her life had felt incomplete before she'd met Finn, but now that he was a part of their family, she felt more...settled.

Like they'd agreed, they started off a little slowly. This was partially because of what Finn had said, but it also had to do with their work schedules. Life at First Order Properties sounded awful, but Finn didn't want to leave just yet. "I have student loans to pay off," he'd said when he and Kaydel were getting dinner together about a week after they'd met, "and I'm willing to put up with a shitty work environment if it means I can get out of debt quicker." Kaydel couldn't find an argument against that and anyway, they didn't have a job for someone with Finn's experience and skillset at the moment anyway. (Plus, she thought that Jessika might faint if she and Poe had said that another one of their soulmates wanted to work with them. "You guys are already sort of an HR nightmare," Jessika had said once. "An adorable HR nightmare, but still an HR nightmare.")

They fell into a sort of date night schedule. She, Rose, and Poe had already had something along those lines—Kaydel didn't want to interfere with their "Wednesday night writing" hobby, and Rose hated the yoga class that Kaydel and Poe attended every Saturday morning—and Finn fell into it almost seamlessly. He'd been a little unsure about the yoga thing at first, but after the first Friday night he spent at their place, they'd persuaded him to try it.

"Don't listen to them," Rose had said, wrinkling their nose. "Yoga is boring."

"Two out of three say it's fun," Finn had said. "I think I'll take my chances."

He sort of became a part of Rose and Poe's fanfiction hobby, as well. Finn had no desire to write, and he wasn't the biggest consumer of MCU fanfiction, but he was always happy to beta their writing. "They're good writers," he'd explained to Kaydel when Rose asked what Finn thought of their latest chapter over dinner one evening. "I like supporting their hobby." Kaydel did, too, but she didn't like MCU nearly as much as her other soulmates did.

And as the months passed, Finn started to spend more and more time at their place. Eventually he had a drawer of his things in each of their rooms, and then he stopped going back to his apartment after dates with one (or all) of them, until finally Rose blurted out "Can the four of us find a place together?" during brunch one Sunday about eight months after he had started dating all three of them, and that was that.

None of them were able to adequately express their excitement about this in words.

 

* * *

 

They managed to find a small four-bedroom house not too far from the downtown area where the Concrete Resistance office was. The commute was a bit longer for Finn, but he said that it was worth the extra time. "Besides, it's not like I expect to be working there forever," he said when they all signed the lease.

The best part of it, in Rose's opinion—aside from, well, everything—was the small yard that came with the house. "Look at it," she said, standing in the small, grassy space. "We can finally grow a garden. You know, like the thing our company is always trying to promote."

Poe laughed. "It's about time," he said. Despite their company's mission statement, however, he, Kaydel, and Rose didn't have a whole lot of experience turning a small yard into a garden. But it became something that the four of them all did together, taking something and making it _theirs_. They'd moved into the house in the spring, making it the perfect time of year to start a vegetable garden. And even though Finn, with his degree in communications and job as a research assistant at a massive property development company, felt like he was completely unprepared for such a task, by August, he had completely taken charge of planning the garden and figuring out what to do with all of the surplus vegetables they'd grown that summer.

It was their thing, Rose thought with a happy smile. The four of them, in one happy home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Having a grass garden is actually pretty bad for the environment in many places!](https://permaculturenews.org/2016/06/03/why-our-lawns-are-bad-for-the-environment-and-how-to-change-them-for-the-better/) If you’re interested, here are some articles on how to turn your yard into a more environmentally-friendly garden. It varies by region, but [here’s an article from the University of North Carolina](http://ncbg.unc.edu/environmentally-responsible-gardening-practices/) and [here’s one from the University of Utah](https://www.redbuttegarden.org/gardening-information/). [Here’s one that’s a little more generic](https://gardentherapy.ca/raised-vegetable-garden/), since not everyone lives in NC or UT. I am very much not an expert on this (I don't have a yard or a garden) but I am very pro-environmentalism and I find this stuff fascinating.
> 
> If you're wondering about Rose's comment about what the company she, Poe, and Kaydel work at does, it was established in the other fic in this series that their company (Concrete Resistance) is all about connecting people and educating them on how to reclaim green spaces in cities.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm on [tumblr](https://radioactivesaltghoul.tumblr.com/) and I love talking about sw, polyamory, and various other things.


End file.
